Senators: State must do more to aid landlords hurt by moratorium
State bailout program is ineffective, Tedisco and Jordan contend
Small-business landlords are vital to providing affordable housing, Sen. James Tedisco said Wednesday, but they can’t make a living when tenants don’t pay rent, and a state bailout fund meant to help both tenants and landlords is ineffective.
Tedisco, R-glenville, and Sen. Daphne Jordan, R-halfmoon, held a press conference in Halfmoon with four local landlords, who each described the hardships they’ve endured since the COVID-19 pandemic began and some of their tenants stopped paying rent, either because they lost income or because they refused, knowing there were both federal and state eviction moratoriums in place that would prevent the landlord from evicting them.
Rosie Karame, a mortgage tax supervisor for the Rensselaer County clerk’s office and the owner of a rental property in Troy, said she had a tenant who paid rent consistently for six years until the pandemic hit, then she stopped paying. In September, she moved out and Karame said she can’t find the woman in order to take her to court for the unpaid rent.
Karame, who mentioned she has three children — two in private school — said she’s taking money out of her children’s college fund to pay the taxes and water bill on the property.
The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has a program with $2.7 billion in it to help people pay rent. They started taking applications June 1, but the requirements are too complicated and the eligibility too narrow for it to be useful, said Chris Morris, the founder and executive director of Schenectady Landlords Influencing Change. The application is not complete unless both the tenant and landlord fill out their portion. Tenants cannot make more than 80 percent of the area median income, listed as $55,500 for a family of four in Saratoga County.
Michelle Arthur, executive director of United Tenants of Albany, said approval from ERAP takes six to eight weeks once the application is complete.
“We have not had any approvals yet as not enough time has elapsed and all of our tenants who applied did not fall in the specific approval criteria open at this time,” she said.
The Emergency Rental Assistance Program will cover up to 12 months of back rent dating to March 13, 2020, and up to 12 months of unpaid electric or gas utility payments. Landlords may not evict the tenants for up to a year after they receive money from ERAP, nor can they raise the tenants’ rent.
In a letter to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dated June 17, Jordan called for changes to ERAP, noting when “rent scofflaws” leave their apartments without a forwarding address, the landlord is stuck.
Tedisco has introduced a bill offering a different solution to help landlords, calling for a program similar to the federal Paycheck Protection Program offered earlier in the pandemic. The loan-to-grant program would issue loans to landlords who own properties that contain six or fewer units. If a tenant pays back rent, the landlord would return money to the state; if not, the loan becomes a grant. Tedisco proposes taking money from ERAP to pay for the loans.